


The Way I See You

by kianspo



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotionally Constipated Erik is Fun to Read, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, Erik is an artist, Exes still in love, M/M, Mutual Pining, White Collar Crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 22:21:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21043721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kianspo/pseuds/kianspo
Summary: Charles is an FBI agent working white collar crimes, specializing in art theft. Erik is a master forger. It's all well and good, except no one knows that Charles and Erik used to be in love once upon a time. Years later, they meet again.





	The Way I See You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gerec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerec/gifts).

> Written for [ Gerec's ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerec/pseuds/Gerec)tumblr prompt: Charles and Erik as exes who bump into each other years after their breakup because of 'insert reason'. There's nothing in the way of them trying again, except the thing that drove them apart in the first place.. 
> 
> I veered off it, I think, mostly because I struggled with inventing a non-canon reason that would make for the kind of irreconcilable differences this calls for. How did I do?

\--

The painting is ugly, cheap and tasteless, and pretentious as all hell. The man standing in front of it is worse. Not externally, of course. Expensive suit, handmade shoes, a five-hundred-dollar haircut. He’s quite impressive by objective standards. But it’s exactly the ostentatious way he wears his money, the way he stares at the painting with a smug air of would-be expert that makes him the least attractive man in the room. At least in Charles's eyes.

Charles sighs as he turns away. He knows the man, of course. He didn’t give up his badge that long ago as to not be aware of the big whales of the art world waters. Daniel Zhova, a self-made millionaire, with much more money than taste and no education in the arts to speak of. An easy target at an event such as this for hustlers and con artists. Thankfully, it’s not Charles's job anymore to protect the willfully ignorant.

He folds his arms behind his back and walks along the gallery aisle, giving all of his attention to the ‘new and upcoming’. He sees more ambition than talent. Maybe he’s getting old. Surely, it’s too early to turn cynical before he hits forty? He should keep his more optimistic outlook for a few more years at least. 

Maybe not tonight, though. Not every gala proves fruitful even in the best of times, and true talent is a rare enough find. He should know. He spent enough time sorting through frauds and fakes to appreciate a rare gem when he stumbles over one. Tonight isn’t looking bright in that respect. Maybe, he should swing by the bar instead and see if he can get lucky in a more basic sense. The thought makes him tense, and he shakes his head at himself. He’s been alone too long. He’s gotten out of habit.

As he turns to walk back past the ostentatious Hayes and its pretentious admirer, he stops in his tracks. Zhova is no longer alone, having attracted exactly the wrong kind of attention with his arrogance, as Charles has predicted. He just didn’t think it would be _him_.

“…the combination of colors is a particularly bold choice,” Erik is saying. “It doesn’t seem all that aesthetically pleasing at first glance, does it? No. But the more you look at it, the more the nuances begin to come out.”

Charles bites back a smile. Erik has many talents, some of them take Charles's breath away till this day, but his mastery of bullshitting has got to have come straight from the devil, because it’s a form of art in itself.

For a few moments, Charles simply stands back and allows himself to fully take in the man he hadn’t seen in over five years. And it was brief back then. Their first meeting in months, public by necessity. They didn’t so much as shake hands. Charles closes his eyes for a moment, Erik's smooth, deep voice washing over him, waking bittersweet echoes in his bones.

Erik looks good. Erik always looks good; he’s a walking work of art by himself. No wonder he’s always been drawn to beauty. Time hasn’t changed that. His hair is shorter now, and he’s got a shadow of stubble, perfectly crafted, underlining the strong, sharp lines of his face. He’s wearing a smart suit without a tie, the top few buttons of his white shirt undone. He’s oozing sex appeal and confidence in a natural way Charles should be used to, but isn’t. He never has been. Erik's presence hits him every time like the first time, delivering a punch to the gut that takes forever to recover from.

With nothing short of a feat of will, Charles forces himself to stomp on his body’s responses and tunes in to the conversation. He can’t help a smirk that is way more fond than it should be. Once upon a time, he’d be stepping in now, saving Zhova from his own ignorance, much as it would pain him, and, if not arresting Erik, then at least hauling him away. Thankfully, that’s not his job anymore.

Erik must be bored, Charles thinks. He’s not doing this for the money. God knows, with all the things he’s done that Charles tries to forget he knows about—will never admit he knows about—he should be set for life by now. Though, to be fair, Erik was never in it for the money. Not even when he and Charles were just a couple of broke art students in Paris, back before people began to offer Erik outrageous sums for the forgeries he made. Erik did it for sport, for ambition, to laugh in the face of the rich and stupid, to prove that he could get away with it and not get caught. Charles had never understood that addiction, chasing that high. Why risk so much when Erik's own original art was so bloody gorgeous?

Erik, of course, could not be stopped, not for appeal to common sense, not for anything more personal. Three years they spent together—bright, tempestuous, filled with laughter and endless lovemaking and cheap but still so good French wine. Best friends, lovers, though the word had never crossed Erik's lips, and Charles's only once. It wasn’t enough. They didn’t, as it turned out, want the same thing in the end. 

Charles was willing to do a lot for Erik, but to exist perpetually on the wrong side of the law was asking too much. Erik, by the end of it, had become nearly unreachable, drunk on the fast, easy money, on the feeling of superiority, on all the pretty girls and boys following him around. Charles could handle all of that, ever-patient, waiting for Erik to get it out of his system. Except Erik didn’t want to get it out of his system.

_‘You won’t understand what it feels like, Charles,’ he’d said. ‘You don’t paint.’_

Charles did paint. He was pretty decent, too, but next to Erik, anything short of genius was completely eclipsed. Funnily enough, Charles had never been jealous of that. He was far more happy as a student of art as opposed to its creator. He tried to convey as much to Erik, time and again, but Erik never quite believed him.

So when a client came, asking Erik to produce a Degas indistinguishable from the original, not even hiding his purpose, Charles had had enough. They had a horrible fight that night, when Erik came home to their cramped little loft where it was always too hot in the summer and found Charles packing.

_‘So this is it?’ he growled, voice cold as ice. ‘I don’t do what you want and you just leave? I don’t like ultimatums, Charles.’_

_‘It’s not an ultimatum. I just don’t want to be party to a crime.’_

_‘It never stopped you before!’_

_‘The stakes have never been this high before! This isn’t something you can dismiss as a prank or a joke or a test of your abilities. It’s illegal, Erik. Do you understand that? You can go to jail for this, for a long time.’_

_‘Only if I get caught, and they’re not smart enough.’_

_‘Do you even listen to yourself? Do you remember what you told me when we first met? That painting was a communion with God for you? When did that change for wanting to prove that you’re smarter than everyone? Or is it all for money and I’m just an idiot?’_

_‘You’re an idiot, all right. What the hell do you want from me, Charles? To stop being who I am?’_

_‘A master forger is not who you are! You have a _gift_, Erik. Is this really what you want to do with it?’_

_‘And what would you have me do, huh? Be a starving artist and when that doesn’t work out—what? Apply for an office job? Nobody wants to buy my own paintings, if you haven’t noticed!’_

_‘Because it takes time! You’ve got to be patient, and yes, you’ve got to work on it, to promote yourself—’_

_‘I am not going to turn into my own commercial! These people see nothing, understand nothing! They’ll never see the masterpiece that’s right before them!’_

_‘Then let me help you convince them.’ Charles walked over, ignoring Erik's glower, took him by the hand. ‘Please, Erik. Come to New York with me. I’ll finish my degree, I’ll work as your manager. We’ll make it work, I swear to you.’_

_Erik jerked his hand free angrily, pulling back. His eyes narrowed in a derisive stare he’d never aimed at Charles before. ‘You know, I always forget. I used to think you were different, but you’re not, are you? Disowned or not, you’re one of them. You’ll always be one of them.’_

_Charles swallowed the pain, swallowed the blow. ‘I don’t know what I am,’ he admitted. ‘But I know I love you. More than life itself, Erik. That’s—that’s why I can’t watch you destroy yourself. I’m sorry. I just can’t.’_

He’d held on to hope, stupidly, for the rest of that night and the entirety of the next day, as he sat at the airport, waiting for his flight, that Erik would change his mind. That he’d come after Charles, would ask him to stay or decide to go with him. Would tell him he loved him back. But Erik never came, and Charles spent eight hours in the air in blank stupor, not sleeping and not moving.

He pulled himself through his PhD as though half-asleep, present one moment, completely oblivious the next. He’d dreamed Erik would call that first year. Almost every night. He began listening to rumors of rare paintings surfacing suddenly here and there, and watched the news anxiously, fearing to hear the familiar name. He drank too much and slept too little and published a few papers that drew a lot of attention and didn’t care. He had no plans beyond completing his degree, not how he once had. Without Erik, nothing felt real.

It took him over three years to even begin to recover. Slowly, life began to be filled with meaning again, right about the time of his graduation. A pretty dark-haired woman he’d hit on while celebrating with his colleagues at a bar turned out to be one Moira MacTaggert, an FBI agent. She didn’t slap him and didn’t sleep with him. Instead, she recruited him straight out of university to work for the FBI white collar crime division. Charles had nothing better to do with his life and he thought—well. Doesn’t matter what else he thought. He agreed.

It turned out that art expertise was his natural talent. He worked tirelessly, never really acquiring much of a social life, which led to an insanely high solving rate and rapid promotion. Within two years, he found himself the head of his own team and someone with a reputation in the art world.

He never told anyone about Erik. He never said that the amazingly gifted forger who was steadily climbing to the top of the Wanted list and whom the FBI had nicknamed ‘The Magician’ for never leaving a single clue behind other than the quality of his work was a man whose identity Charles had always known.

And then there were the meetings. A hotel in Berlin when Charles was pursuing the stolen Monet. A café in Dresden when Zwinger had been proudly displaying a Magician-painted _The Procuress_ for weeks while the original Vermeer was in the wind before anyone noticed. Another hotel in Prague where Charles was too drunk on champagne to be mad anymore, and Erik whispered to him through the night in German many silly and beautiful things, all but one.

In a rare show of tact or compassion, Erik didn’t approach him in Paris, though Charles did spot him through the crowd in D’Orsay. Not that he needed to, when he had a Lautrec that wasn’t really a Lautrec right there. He was nearly caught that time, because, much as Charles (hating himself the entire time) exercised selective blindness, he couldn’t force himself to be actually bad at his job and he couldn’t be on guard all the time. He solved eighty-five percent of the case within the first two hours, before he realized it was another one of Erik's. Charles drank his weight in alcohol in Paris, and the only reason he wasn’t fired was the original painting left at his hotel room while he wasn’t there, wrapped in unassuming brown paper. Charles very nearly burned it, but rewrapped it instead and then when through the usual shtick of questioning and requesting surveillance footage, but of course no one saw anything.

There were two years of silence after that, barring Erik leaving more gifts for him a few times. Leads, breadcrumbs. An unscrupulous client Erik deemed unworthy of his art. An art thief who turned out to be a child molester. An insurance agent with an impressive private collection, whom Charles had been after for months without being able to catch him in the act or nail with proof. Well, it helped when one didn’t need a warrant. He hated the risk Erik was taking. Snitches died just as surely in the art world as anywhere else. Damn the man’s arrogance.

Seeing Erik finally in his own New York apartment, feeling torn apart by relief and anger. 

_‘I hate you,’_ Charles sobbed into his shoulder that night, angry and despairing, as Erik fucked him, on and on, riding a fine edge between gentle and ruthless, as though trying to bury himself in the rhythm, in Charles, staving off the inevitable. As though for as long as he kept going, he wouldn’t need to face anything, wouldn’t need to feel.

Charles drew blood as he bit his tongue over and over again by the end of it to stop the words from spilling. He couldn’t do that again, couldn’t bear that kind of hurt again. He could let Erik wreck his body and do his own damage in return, but he couldn’t do that.

Erik left before their bodies cooled, walking funny and unsteady, like a drunk man, never looking back. Charles didn’t try to stop him. He found a gift on the kitchen counter in the morning, a Lehnsherr original, which he absolutely couldn’t keep as Erik had to know. He left the painting anyway, and Charles watched it burn, and then went to work, and smiled at people, and watched them flinch.

Two months later, he met Steve, a bright, newly elected congressman with a flawless army record and a burning desire to do good. Charles resisted for as long as possible, but the man was persistent and sincere, and Charles was tired of being alone. He tried to argue for keeping it quiet, but Steve was too honest for this world. His coming out made a splash in the papers, and it was a matter of days before the press determined who Charles was, and then he had his own colleagues poking fun at him whenever possible.

It was good when the dust settled. Steve’s career actually got a boost. Moira stopped watching Charles with scared eyes. Charles… Charles almost started to relax. Eight months in, someone robbed the Prado, replacing _The Clothed Maja_ by Goya with one of the Magician’s. The original turned up two weeks later, delivered as an anonymous donation to the headquarters of the Survivor Mitzvah Project, starting a legal shitstorm in twelve different countries.

When Erik turned up a week later, Charles punched him in the face. Erik kissed him. Charles punched him again. Erik sighed. _‘You don’t love him.’_

_‘I could though!’_ Charles snarled. _‘I’m ‘one of them,’ Erik, remember? What do you care?’_

He cursed and raged and didn’t say ‘no’ when Erik sank to his knees before him. _‘You make me hate myself,’_ he whispered, cradling Erik's head between his hands tenderly, as he spilled himself down Erik's throat. _‘You have to stop while there’s something left of me.’_

Erik said nothing as he left. Charles ended things with Steve the next morning, breaking his own heart as he saw Steve’s break, and he couldn’t even explain. Charles went off the rails after that, cashing in all his not inconsiderable leave time, nose diving into a bender, and then sitting for days on a grassy beach somewhere up in Maine because why the hell not, gazing at the waves.

When he resurfaced, it was to the news of Erik being arrested for—of all things—forging the liquor license for his bar. Charles had friends in all kinds of places, including the NYPD, so he was there when they read the sentence. Erik turned to look at him across the half-empty courtroom, the DA gloating next to him, clueless as ever. Erik smiled softly as their eyes met. At Charles's side, Moira nudged him, demanding to know what that was all about and what they were doing there in the first place. She was still his boss, but Charles never did answer.

Five years of silence after that. Erik only spent three of them in prison, but Charles hadn’t caught so much as a whiff of him since. Not through the usual channels, that was, and tried not to dwell on the rest.

And now here they are, sharing space again. Charles should walk away. Instead, he approaches slowly, a smile on his lips.

“Ah, Doctor Xavier.” Zhova turns to him as Charles enters his field of vision, cutting Erik off mid-word. “Good thing you’re here. What do you think of this one? Lehnsherr here is telling me it’s a good investment, but I’ve never heard of that Hayes guy before.”

“Good evening, gentlemen.” Charles nods politely, his eyes drifting to Erik's for a moment. He has to bite his lip against the amused acceptance he sees there and turns to look at the painting, pretending to consider. “Oh, a new Hayes,” he says, faking enthusiasm like a pro he no longer is and always will be. “Well, it certainly isn’t everyone’s taste. I, for one, wouldn’t care for it.” Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Erik's shoulders droop a little. “But my stepfather is a fine connoisseur of art, and he has a real gift for sensing the rising stars. He’s bought a couple of Hayes’ for his private collection.”

Erik's head snaps up and he stares at Charles. Charles allows his smile to morph into a grin for just a second, and he feels Erik's delight and barely swallowed laughter like a sudden burst of sunlight against his skin.

“Really?” Zhova’s eyes widen to incorporate the huge dollar signs he’s harboring there. “Well, now. I think I need to speak to the host, gents. Excuse me.”

He hurries off, rubbing his hands like a cartoon character. Charles can’t spare a moment watching him go, but as Erik takes a step closer, he turns toward the painting, seeking comfort in its ugliness. Erik is, as always, too much to withstand point blank.

“Your stepfather,” Erik murmurs softly, laughter clinging to every syllable. “Charles, that’s cruel. Masterful, but cruel.”

Charles shrugs, grinning. “I’m not responsible for his ignorance.”

“That never stopped you before.”

“Perhaps, I’m coming over to your way of thinking. Willful ignorance isn’t worth the effort.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Charles Xavier?”

Charles smiles. “Do you even know this fellow?” He nods at the painting. “He’s going to become a few grand richer tonight, if I’m reading this correctly. Friend of yours?”

He can feel Erik shaking his head, because Erik is standing that close. Jesus.

“Never heard of him. I was bored, and that idiot was there.”

Charles closes his eyes for a moment, dropping his head and smiling helplessly. “You never change, do you?”

“I don’t think you’d want me to,” Erik says softly. “But as it happens… Can I buy you a drink?”

_Say no. Be smart for once in your life. Say no._

He lifts his head, always a mistake, Erik's face inches from his own, Erik looking down at him like he’s never seen anything in his life before and is now taking in every detail, greedy for it.

“Sure,” Charles says and blushes as Erik reads his lips. “Why not?”

The gallery bar is well-stocked, but Erik still prefers martinis. Charles sips his scotch. He unbuttons his suit jacket as they sit down, loosens his tie, all the while trying to pretend he’s not hyperaware of Erik's gaze following every motion. He wonders what Erik sees.

“I heard you retired,” Erik opens.

Charles snorts. “In a manner of speaking. I’m still consulting with Moira’s team”—he glances at Erik to make sure he got the message—“but my old professor at Columbia has retired, and they offered his spot to me. Field experience and all. I took it.”

Erik nods. “You always did love to teach.”

Charles doesn’t comment. There’s no explaining of how hunting Erik down, among other things, couldn’t be his job anymore. He’s fairly certain Erik knows anyway.

“What about you?” Charles asks, fortifying himself with another sip of his drink. “I read about your first show in the Times. Quite a success, I understand it? Congratulations.”

Erik hasn’t looked away from him once. “I hoped you’d come to the opening. Or some other night.”

And oh, but Charles wanted to come. More than anything.

“I… wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me.”

Erik's hand covers his own on the table. “Always.”

Charles swallows. “Erik…”

“Come right now,” Erik says, leaning closer. “It’s only a short ride. I’d love to hear your opinion.”

“Really.” Charles glances up skeptically. “You never cared for it before.”

“I always cared for it before. You have impeccable taste, Charles. You’re the only person whose opinion of my art I can trust.”

“Please don’t try to con me.”

“I’m not.” Erik squeezes his hand. “I never have. You’d know the difference, surely.”

Would he? Charles doesn’t know. Erik has to do so little to make Charles believe in anything. Except that what little he does have to do he never did.

He finishes his scotch in one go and stands up, pulling his hand free. “All right.”

Erik looks surprised for a moment, like he didn’t expect Charles to agree. He’s on his feet within a second, though, ushering Charles along with a hand at the small of his back.

It _is_ a short ride, an even shorter one if one is driving a Porsche. A shorter one still if the one driving is Erik, who blazes through yellow lights with almost malicious glee. Charles only grins, shaking his head. Erik is reckless, and Charles trusts him unreasonably, what else is new. Or maybe he just doesn’t care anymore.

Erik's show is held in an old factory building turned office loft turned exhibition space. It’s a place to be if one’s keeping up with the times, along with gastropubs and interactive performances. Erik flicks the lights on as he lets Charles in.

It’s not a big show, thirty paintings at most. Charles wanders through the spacious room, eyes hungry for every stroke of the brush. Erik lets him peruse in silence, a quiet presence hovering at the periphery of Charles's perception.

The art is extraordinary. Charles wonders briefly if it’s the strict diet of forgeries made by Erik's hand that he had to subside on for years and that made him long for a glimpse of Erik's soul that makes that impression. But it isn’t. Just as he had never lied to himself about who and what Erik is, he never looked at his art through the lens of his bias. If anything, Erik is stronger now, mature and quietly confident, where he was cocky and brazen before. There’s still the unapologetic drama to his art, but it has matured too now, no longer being there for its own sake. Erik has never been subtle, but it’s a marked change to see him fully embracing his nature as opposed to throwing it in everyone’s face like a challenge.

Charles doesn’t realize he’s been standing in front of one painting for a long time until he feels Erik's presence behind him. It’s a small café table by the riverbank somewhere on a stormy, rainy day. People are hurrying by, pulling the collars of their coats up, and the wait staff are putting the tables and chairs away in the background, but at the single table, a hunched figure is sitting still, unbothered by the weather.

“Nine years ago,” Erik murmurs in his ear, “after Prague.”

Charles blinks, his eyes stinging. He focuses on the small panel declaring the painting _Sold_.

“How much did it go for?” he asks, clinging to his professionalism.

“Ten grand.”

Charles turns toward him, genuinely surprised. “Erik. It’s worth at least three times that. I don’t mean to me, I mean—”

“I know. But it’s my first show, my agent did the pricing. I don’t mind, to tell you the truth.”

Charles turns back toward the painting, but Erik's eyes stay on him as he steps closer still.

“You look beautiful tonight.” Erik's lips almost, _almost_ touch Charles's hair as they move. Charles sways on his feet slightly.

“Erik, don’t.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

Charles can’t help a broken little laugh that escapes him. “No. What about you?”

Because Erik has hardly been a monk all those years, and, if he so desired, he could fill the entire Metropolitan Museum of Art, top to bottom, with the portraits of all the eerily gorgeous people he’d slept with.

Erik presses against his back, an arm sliding around his waist. “No. Not in a while.”

Charles leans against him, knowing it for a lost battle when Erik's breath warms the side of his neck. In truth, it was lost the moment he’d said ‘yes’ to the drink. Or perhaps it was lost all those years back in Paris, when he was eighteen and stupid, and a tall, gorgeous, if somewhat broody looking fellow perhaps a few years older than him, stepped up to him and said, _‘I need a painting model, and that French asshole just canceled. You’re too short, and your nose is too big, but you’ll do, I suppose. Come with me.’_

“_Charles,_” Erik breathes, emboldened, pressing his lips against his neck when Charles doesn’t push him away. “I’ve got a small studio here at the back. Would you like to see it?”

“I’m just a booty call for you, aren’t I?” Charles asks fatalistically, letting Erik turn him around. There’s no point resisting.

Erik's eyes have gone the color of molten lead. “You look incredible tonight,” he says just before he kisses Charles on the mouth, and that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what it has always boiled down to.

The studio is small and cramped, and Charles doesn’t care, doesn’t have time to look around. Erik's undressing him by feel, gentle but impatient, taking care to throw his jacket and pants out of the way of any stray paint or brushes, but doing nothing to preserve them beyond that. Charles doesn’t care, hands as hungry to get to skin as they ever have been, marveling at the perfection that is Erik's firm, chiseled body all over again, fuller now, denser, yet still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Erik rolls him onto his back on the narrow cot, and Charles lets him, moaning in pleasure as Erik presses him down, so much skin against his own, the space between them heating up quickly. Erik kisses him. Erik seems unable to stop kissing him, and Charles missed this perhaps most of all. It’s hungry, but not urgent, like they have all the time in the world, like it doesn’t have to stop.

Erik kisses him everywhere, returning to his mouth over and over again, as though addicted. Charles can’t stop his own hands as they roam all over Erik's body, studying him anew, painting him by touch, and Erik groans, unabashed, completely unselfconscious, and thrusts against him, and kisses him again. The world disappears into a symphony of wet sounds of lips meeting flesh, of bodies sliding against each other sensually, as though driven with a life of their own, taking their inhabitants for a ride. Charles could stay forever like this, existing just within this perfect moment, but he can sense the inexorable build up of urgency low in his belly, knows it’s mirrored perfectly in Erik's.

Erik locks eyes with him as he pushes his thighs apart, and Charles doesn’t have to nod, doesn’t have to give him any kind of confirmation. Erik knows this, knows him, had known even at the beginning, once upon a time before Charles had even known anything himself, before he’d ever let anyone go that far. Erik slides into him now like coming home, bottoming out before Charles can catch a breath, drinking the ragged moan from his lips when Charles has the air for it. Erik never looks away as he moves, and Charles loves him like this, with his face open like this, unable to hide anything, when he gazes down at Charles like he can’t stop, like it would kill him to look away.

Charles reaches for him, and they move together, finding the rhythm that could go on forever, perpetual, until the time itself runs out. Just as all the thoughts flee, Charles wonders if Erik ever had this with anyone else, if it’s always like this for him, and only ever a revelation for Charles alone. He’s fairly certain he hasn’t spoken out loud, doesn’t have the breath for it anyway, but Erik responds as though he heard him, hiking up Charles's knee higher almost viciously, changing the angle to one he’s been avoiding so far and pounding at it, making Charles cry out and let go of him, whimpering helplessly, losing what leverage he had, drowning in overwhelming pleasure.

He can’t think anymore, can’t make sense of the words Erik is growling at him, can’t even tell what language they’re in, but they’re raining down on his skin like liquid fire, unrelenting, merciless, like Erik is, like he always has been. As though from a great distance, Charles hears himself beg, plead with Erik to touch him, kiss him, anything, _anything_, just for the love of God, Erik, please please please…

Erik groans, pushes his knees apart further still, bends down and seals their lips together, a scorching hot kiss that pushes Charles right over the edge, before Erik's hand can even get to him. They moan in tandem, and Erik shakes at the sight, a broken, reverent _“Charles”_ falling off his lips, his hips seizing up, locked in motion that becomes frenzied, desperate, on the verge of too much when he finally falls apart.

Charles loses track of time, not that he’s ever kept it. Not tonight. He checks in at odd moments to find Erik kissing him, to find himself kissing back. He’s floating. He can tonight. There’s nowhere he has to be. There’s nothing he has to report. He’s not burdened by a terrible secret, weighing down his conscience, because it’s nobody’s business anymore. He no longer has to be torn in two. He can just float, and let Erik rearrange them as he pleases, and let go.

His questions will resurface soon enough. Erik will disappear soon enough, like he always does. Probably for good this time, as Charles has quit. There’s no longer the aura of danger, the seductive edge of sleeping with the enemy, about him. There’s not much intrigue left to him, as far as Erik is concerned most likely, if there ever was. Until then, until the morning comes, Charles can just not think.

\--

He wakes up just past dawn. He’s lying on his side, with Erik sprawled on his back behind him, dead to the world. Charles sits up on the cot slowly and looks over his shoulder. It’s unfair, it really is. Time has added lines to Erik's face, but they only made him more beautiful. Charles wishes fervently for a moment that he were a sculptor. Two dimensions are never going to be enough to capture Erik, and this moment is worth capturing. It’s been years since Charles had last seen Erik sleep. He’d forgotten how soft he looks, how utterly welcoming.

Quietly, so as not to disturb him, Charles stands up. A corner of his mouth jerks upward as he feels the soreness in his body. For a moment, Charles wants to do nothing more than to shift and squirm to feel it better, every bit of it. Erik can be gentle. Erik can be tender. He wasn’t last night, and Charles is glad of it. Was this the last time? His aches would fade far too quickly, but he’s glad for even a fleeting souvenir.

He pulls on his boxerbriefs and shivers in the cold morning air. Erik's shirt is closer, and Charles pulls it on. He can’t even spot his own. He looks around the studio, grateful that Erik is asleep, giving Charles the time to snoop. He glances over the rows of canvases leaning against the walls, facing away. Tempting. Erik has always trusted him not to give him up, but he usually took care not to subject Charles to unnecessary moral scruples by removing anything incriminating from their surroundings. Is that still the case, Charles wonders, now that Charles is no longer obligated to report him? He’s still obligated as a private citizen, of course, but he could give a damn about that. Pulling the shirt tighter about himself, though not bothering with the buttons, he pads around barefoot, sparing one last look for the bed.

Careful not to produce any noise, he turns the first canvas around. His hand flies up to his mouth, barely in time to stifle a yell of surprise. He doesn’t know what he has been expecting, but it wasn’t this.

His own face is staring back at him from the unframed canvas. Erik must have painted this from the numerous sketches he’d made of Charles when they only first met, when he was still working on his technique. Or perhaps, he painted it from memory. Could his memory be this sharp? Charles was eighteen or nineteen, looking younger even that that, and the painting shows exactly that. A smiling, slender boy, with short hair and freckles, eyes a flattering vivid blue, standing bare-chested near a sink, half-turning toward the viewer, a mischievous smirk curling his lips. It’s Erik's work, unquestionably, and yet it’s like no other painting of his Charles has ever seen. It’s light and soft, almost—hazy with emotion. Charles looks flirtatious, carefree, even—yes, he’s not imagining it, even sexy. Playful in a way he’d forgotten he could feel once upon a time.

His hands shaking slightly, he sets the canvas back, not bothering to turn it as it was. He glances back at the cot, but Erik hasn’t moved, his chest moving up and down in slow, relaxed rhythm. It’s not even a question if Charles is going to invade his privacy any further. He’s never been that good a man.

It’s still a shock when he turns the next one around. It’s one of him, also. He’s older here, probably grad school period, judging by how long his hair is and the baggy sweater he’s wearing. He’s hunched over a book in what looks vaguely like a library, the thick-framed glasses he used to wear to discourage people from striking up conversation sliding low on his nose. He’s biting his lip as he frowns down at something on the page. Charles feels hot all over. Erik couldn’t have seen him like this. They were on different continents at the time. But the painting is as precise as a photograph, if more alive with depth and color. Charles can’t deny that he looks exactly like himself and yet like someone different, someone infinitely alluring even with his unkempt appearance.

The next canvas has him in a suit, cheap and ill-fitting, his hair cut short, neat, trying to be presentable. His face is a steely mask of concentration, the quirk of his lips determined but angry. His eyes are too bright again, and that’s odd, because Erik doesn’t embellish, ever. He’d lost clients, back in the day, when he refused to flatter them.

Charles turns over a few more paintings with unsteady hands. He’s growing numb with shock. They are all of him, every single one, stretched through the years of his life. Some are painted from photographs he recognizes from work functions or social events. Some are clearly reconstructed from memory, unless Erik took his time in Berlin to sketch him while Charles slept, before slipping out without saying goodbye. Some are neither from photos, nor from any of their clandestine meetings, capturing moments Erik shouldn’t have been able to see. 

There is one of Charles with a man, who is definitely not Erik, tall, muscly, broad-shouldered. It doesn’t take a genius to place him, though Erik took care not to paint his face, but the moment itself did happen—Steve holding Charles in his arms from behind, his face tucked into his shoulder, as they wait for a taxi outside a restaurant. It’s a sweet, tender moment, but the brushstrokes are angry, pressed in too hard, almost violent. It creates a dichotomy that makes Charles's head spin.

There’s one of Charles in one of his depressive states, with an unkempt beard obscuring his face that one time he let it grow. His eyes are a darker, stormier blue, still too deep to be believed.

There’s one of Charles clean-shaven and neat again, older, yet looking younger, smiling softly at someone outside the frame.

They are all of him. Charles feels dizzy, surrounded by his own reflections. His own—yet not quite his own. Precise in every detail to the point where it’s, frankly, creepy, and yet—not completely truthful. Painted by Erik's hand, definitely, and yet—not quite. The difference is subtle, subliminal, but there. 

Erik's art is always honest, always sincere, but this feels—raw. No filtering, no censorship, not even unconscious one. Erik would never lie, not for anyone, and this feels the most honest he’s ever been, and yet Charles looks more beautiful here than he ever did in real life, even in his ugliest moments. It doesn’t add up.

“It’s what I see when I look at you.”

It’s a shock and yet not to find Erik standing a few feet away, watching him closely. There’s no surprise in him being able to read Charles's bewilderment easily. But what he said means… it can’t mean…

Charles swallows to make his throat work. “You never said—”

Erik steps closer. “I never knew how.”

Charles sways in place. “Erik…”

He can feel Erik right next to him, pulling Charles's chin up with fingers that are shaking slightly.

“Will you stay with me, Charles?”

“Erik—”

“I quit. No more forgeries. No more theft. I have nothing left to prove to anyone, except for you. I was thinking about it, I was always going to do it. But then I heard about you retiring from the Bureau, and…”

Charles has to step away, struggling to think. “I never wanted this, Erik. I never wanted you to stop being who you are. What you said in Paris, I shouldn’t have tried to press—”

“I was an idiot in Paris. You knew me better than I did. You were right about me. It just took me a while to see it. Even longer to admit it. Tell me—” He clasps Charles's arm impulsively, then quickly lets him go. “Tell me I’m not too late.”

Charles looks around the room, overwhelmed, finding no relief in the endless string of mirrors, painted by a man who looked at him like someone who loved him once and never learned to stop.

“You really see me like that?” he whispers.

Erik shudders next to him. “I always have. I always will.”

Charles looks at him with a teary grin. “Even though I’m too short, and my nose is too big, and—”

Erik reels him in and kisses him. Charles winds his arms around his neck, holding on, pulling him close. The button of the dress pants Erik put on is digging into his stomach, and he wants more, he wants all of it, he wants everything.

“You’re firing your agent,” Charles pants, breathless, as Erik backs him into a wall. “He’s robbing you blind.”

Erik grins at him, a wide, happy grin Charles hasn’t seen in over a decade. “I don’t give a damn if I never sell another painting in my life.”

“You will,” Charles hums, because he does know Erik, and people don’t really change, they just learn to make choices.

Erik's agreement is impatient, dismissive, the entirety of his attention focused on Charles, and it doesn’t feel finite for once. It feels endless and amazing.

Charles moans. “Now I really wish you hadn’t done such a number on me last night,” he pushes out, breathy, as Erik kisses and nips down his neck. “I want you, but—”

“I know a thousand ways to make you feel good,” Erik presses into his collarbone. “Just let me, Charles. Let me.”

Charles doesn’t know how to say ‘no’ to that, or why anyone would want to. He’s never been able to tell Erik ‘no’ anyway, except for that one time in another lifetime.

“Anything you want,” he murmurs, and Erik kisses him.

The gallery doesn’t open that day, much to the bewilderment of the assembled art lovers. The only man allowed in around midday is a pizza delivery guy, and he emerges red-faced and quite devoid of the power of speech. Erik's agent is incensed, but the man is getting fired anyway, so Charles figures this specific piece of news can wait till Monday.

He falls asleep curled at Erik's side that night, completely exhausted from talking and the emotional upheaval that sex can only stave off for so long. Erik is just as spent. Neither of them had enough energy to clean up after the last round, and they are sticking together in a way that grown men really shouldn’t be.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, Charles thinks muzzily as he drifts off. But that, too, can wait until morning.

\--


End file.
